Practice The Presence: Mindful Awareness

I came across this Jewel of Wisdom several weeks ago and posted it on November 2, 2013 with the full intention of using it as part of this series.

I captioned it by saying, “It is so easy to walk into a room and create a story about every person in the room. Sometimes this can actually be fun…if that’s all you’re doing. But often we create stories about other people, their intentions, their actions and reactions, their thoughts about us, that we forget that they are just like us. They have the same fears, the same colds, the same 24 hours a day that we do. So why not keep it to basics? “There is Joan”….PERIOD. Then allow Joan to evolve.

So what does this have to do with Practicing The Presence, you ask? Simple really. Mindful Awareness has become the slogan of the day, thus causing all kinds of mysticism about it. But it is actually quite simple to practice mindful awareness. Mindful awareness is being aware of what is going on in the mind. In so doing we become crystal clear of what’s happening around us.

I don’t know about you, but I have this constant chatter that goes on in my head ALL THE TIME! Sometimes it’s downright annoying. This comes from what philosophers identify as the Id or the Ego. Our brains are these mini-computers that operate thousands times faster than any of the computers we have currently. In so doing we hear the ‘code’. On a computer it is all about 0′s and 1′s. If only that was all it was in my head! For me, there is this constant, “Why am I doing this? Why is he/she doing that? What was he/she thinking? What was I thinking? OMG, I have a new line of my face! OMG, he/she is better than me! Will he/she like me? Will he/she approve? What do I have to do when I get to work? What do I have to do when I get home? What about the trash? When am I going to do laundry? Why? When? How? Where? Who?????”

Sometimes I just want to SCREAM, “What the ….?
Shut the …. already!!!!”

Guess what? Sometimes I’ve done just that…and it’s worked! It is said that our modern world bombards us with more information in the reading of ONE newspaper than what it took a lifetime to accumulate only 300 years ago! That is stunning! No wonder our minds are always spinning a new story.

Mindful Awareness isn’t about erasing the noise. It’s actually about paying better attention to the noise. What does that mean? Well, when I sit “quietly” (remember the chattering) I actually listen to the chatter and honour it. I permit it to enter and then let it slip away. You’ve heard that what we resist persists, right? Have you ever tried to meditate and shut off  the chatter? How did that work for you? It didn’t right? Sometimes I do actually shout at it! But really what I’m doing is shouting at myself, so catch myself, to stop and be still, be aware, listen, be in the moment, not the later.

Remember in the earlier part of this series I said that the Presence is everywhere and anywhere? I meant it. Even in the chatter. Honour it. Hear it and allow it to pass through. If you do this you no longer resist and it no longer persists.

Keeping with the thought (not chatter this time) that the Presence is everywhere and anywhere also means that we can choose to practice mindful awareness anywhere and everywhere. So when I am in a room full of people and I start the stories, I can choose to hear it and reframe it and then let it pass. Example: Chatter = “Gosh! Look at that woman! She is absolutely covered in tattoos!” Reframe = “Look at all that art on her. It’s not for me. It’s actually quite creative. It makes her happy. I may prefer less, or perhaps in a book. But look at her face, it’s radiant!” Then let it go.

My Truth: I often find that my chatter is about judgement. It is also about my own insecurity. After all if I can point your attention at someone or something else, then you won’t notice that I have a zit on my nose, right? Who really cares!?! Only me. It’s my story. It doesn’t have to be yours or theirs.

Chatter, for me, is often based in the future. I’m not present to the present but worrying about the future. Identifying it for what it is, honouring it, letting it go often silences it, or at least brings it down a couple of decibels.

Chatter, if carefully filtered, can actually lead me down the road to peace because I can see others and thus myself differently, more gently, less judgmentally.

Practice The Presence: Mindful Awareness